Detectives Don't Grow Wings
by writeswithfeatherquills
Summary: Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, has managed yet again to attract some unwanted attention. And this attention came in the form of a strange man in an alley with a syringe. Who knows what it'll do? The end is coming, and the new generation must be prepared to pull humanity out of the rubble. Eventual Wing!Lock, and some *possible* Johnlock in there, but I'm not sure yet.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hokay, guys. Here's the deal. I've always loved Wing!Lock, and have kinda always wanted to write some, but I could never get it to work. But then it did. Ta-da! So this is an amalgamation of a bunch of little ideas that I've seen or come up with myself, all melded into one story. As of right now, I'm not sure where it's going. Any and all reviews or ideas are appreciated. Thanks for putting up with the weird shit my brain turns out. Adieu. **

Note: This contains some dialog which denounces religious topics. Let it be known that I myself do not hate on religions. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and I respect that entirely. Please do not take offense, it was written to advance the plot and characters only.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock the show, or Sherlock the character. I also do not own John Watson or Greg Lestrade or any other associated character. I do, however, own my imagination, and all the weird stuff it makes, like this.

…

….

…

Sherlock walked down the street, hands tucked in the pockets of his giant, dramatic coat. It was freezing out, but since John was working at the clinic, and the crime scene was only two blocks away, Sherlock had decided to walk. He ducked his head and picked up his pace though, when the first few snowflakes began to whirl through the air, landing on his coat and skin and hair.

But when he was not twenty meters from Baker Street, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, a figure walking across the street at a pace that matched his precisely. He thought for a moment, then he picked up his pace even more, and the figure did also. He narrowed his eyes, and veered off into an unused alley where he knew there were CCTV cameras. Sure enough, he saw the man enter behind him.

"Mr. Holmes." The man intoned, in a rough voice that was quiet but rough, and very, very confident.

Sherlock stopped and turned around to face the stranger.

"What do you want?" He asked, and the man smiled at Sherlock, something that was not unusual for people who thought they could take on the great detective in person.

"To help you." The man replied smoothly. This made Sherlock pause momentarily. He had been cornered by people before, but they usually wanted information, or the contents of his head splattered across the wall. This was new. He looked the man up and down with renewed interest. He was about five foot ten, with thinning black hair and a rather pointed nose. His eyes were a sharp green color, with a glint of something dangerous sparkling in their depths.

"How could you help me?" He asked, allowing a bit of contempt to color his voice, to see if he would get angry. It was a tactic he used often- when people were angry they were more likely to make mistakes. But this man didn't rise to the bait. He kept his voice smooth and even as he spread his arms and replied as if he were speaking some vastly important and unknown truth.

"By welcoming you to the new world. By allowing you to pilot it, to be the first of the coming generation. I've seen your work, Mr. Holmes. Your mind is one of the few that has been deemed worthy of saving in the coming… Armageddon, shall we say."

"There is no Armageddon." Sherlock replied icily.

"Of course not," The man agreed with a bland smile. "-at least in the biblical sense. But the world as you know it will be ending quite soon. And whether you like it or not, you and the chosen others will survive to pull what is left humanity out of the rubble."

Sherlock decided that the man was clearly insane, although he didn't look it. It was a bit of a conundrum, actually. There was clear intelligence and calm rationality in his eyes, yet he was talking about the end of the world like one of those madmen on the streets.

"Well, I don't think that will be happening." Sherlock said as he started walking past the man and out of the alley, giving him a wide berth, already planning to do some research on him when he got home. But before he could take two steps, the man was in front of him again, faster than any human should have been able to move.

Sherlock stopped short in surprise, and then pushed past the man again, but he reacted much faster than Sherlock had anticipated, grabbing his arm and twisting it painfully behind his back.

"The end of the world is coming soon, Mr. Holmes. You. Must be. Prepared." He growled into Sherlock's ear. Sherlock fought to escape, but the man's grip was like iron, and he easily maneuvered him onto the ground, and then punched him in the face. Sherlock's head cracked against the pavement, and his vision darkened for the moment. Then he felt a sharp pain in his neck, and the man stood up, looking down at him.

"You shall be reborn, Sherlock Holmes. And you shall do right."

Then Sherlock's vision darkened more, and the last thing he saw was the man walking away, down the alley and out onto the street as the snow continued to fall. The world disappeared after that.

~O~.~O~

John arrived home to Baker Street, and walked up the stairs, wondering whether the odd quiet was due to Sherlock being in his Mind Palace, or to Sherlock not being here at all. Not that there was much of a difference. However, when he got upstairs, he saw that it was the latter. He sighed, and dragged his hand down his face. It had been a long day, and he was too tired to give a lot of thought as to what his mad flatmate might have gotten up to this time. He went and brewed himself a cup of tea and turned on the telly, putting his phone in front of him on the coffee table so he would see it when Sherlock texted him.

It was probably a case that drew him out, John thought idly as rubbish shows flicked past, one after the other. He picked up the phone and sent a text to Lestrade.

Tough case then? JW

It had been a few hours since Sherlock should have been back. Probably enjoying himself immensely, out finding criminals, John thought only somewhat bitterly. He liked being a doctor, and was grateful for his job at the clinic, but going on cases with Sherlock was definitely more interesting than overprotective mothers who thought their child's every sneeze was the flu. His phone buzzed.

Not really, he figured it out in just under an hour. "simple" he said, but we'd been working on this one for weeks. GL

John stared at the text for a few minutes, confused.

Shouldn't he be back by now then? JW

He isn't? GL

No… JW

Well, it's Sherlock. I'm sure he can take care of himself. Don't worry about it. You're not his nanny, you know. GL

John grinned slightly. No, he wasn't Sherlock's nanny. He turned his attention back to the telly, resolving to have just one quiet night in. Sherlock was probably fine, he knew how to take care of himself.

But when John went to bed at midnight, Sherlock still hadn't come back.

~O~.~O~

John woke up in the morning at 10 o'clock, seeing as it was a Saturday. It had taken him a long time to get out of the army routine of waking up extraordinarily early, but long sleepless nights on cases with Sherlock had taught him to get some sleep in whenever he could.

He went downstairs and brewed himself some coffee, then sat down in his chair. Sleep-addled as he was, it took him ten minutes to figure out what was wrong. Sherlock wasn't here. He frowned, and wondered if the detective had come home after John went to bed and gone to sleep himself. He walked down to Sherlock's room, and knocked softly on the door. When there was no answer, he cracked the door open, but the room was empty.

John frowned, growing slightly concerned. He texted Sherlock.

Where are you? JW

Ten minutes passed.

Sherlock? Where are you, you alright? JW

Another fifteen minutes passed.

SHERLOCK. I'm getting worried now. JW

Twenty minutes after that, Sherlock still hadn't replied, and John was just debating whether or not he should go out and look for him when he heard the front door opening and closing. He breathed a sigh of relief, but grew concerned again when the steps coming up the stairs took much longer than they usually did. He went out onto the landing.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock was climbing the stairs, gripping the railing like a lifeline and dragging his feet up each step. From just one glance, John could tell something was very wrong. His normally pale skin was now yellowish in pallor, and his hair was matted together with what looked suspiciously like blood. He was also covered in snow. Remembering the white flakes that had been whirling past the window last night, John thought worriedly, was he out in that all night? He hurried down the stairs and wrapped one of Sherlock's arms around his shoulders, helping him up to the flat.

"M'fine…" Sherlock mumbled, his words slurring slightly.

"Right." John said, continuing to support eighty percent of Sherlock's weight up the stairs. When they got into the flat, John set Sherlock down on the sofa, and poured him a cup of tea to help him warm up. Sherlock sat up and drank it, but John noticed that he swayed slightly as he did so, as if he was off balance or disoriented.

"All right, what happened?" John asked as he checked Sherlock's vitals. "How worried should I be?"

"Man cornered me in an alley…" Sherlock said groggily. "Stabbed me with somthin…" he gestured vaguely to his neck. John frowned, and looked closer. It took him three seconds to identify the small bruise that was forming where the needle pierced Sherlock's skin. He frowned.

"Shit… Sherlock, look here please." He said as he took out a small torch, shining it in Sherlock's eyes, which reacted slower than they should have.

"Hit my head… concussed…" Sherlock slurred, shaking his head slightly as if that would help clear his obviously muddled brain.

"Okay, Sherlock, we're taking you to the hospital."

"Wha? No, no no nonono." Sherlock pushed John's hands away. "No hospital." He seemed to be trying to sound more articulate, but John crossed his arms. He obviously knew about Sherlock's vehement aversion to hospitals, and what happened to the poor nurses and doctors that were forced to treat him when he did go, but that didn't mean he approved of it.

"Sherlock, a strange man cornered you in an alley, then injected you with something. We are going to the hospital, because you may be poisoned right now." John said, using the 'captain voice' that always seemed to work on Sherlock. But apparently Concussed Sherlock didn't give a shit.

"No. He said he wanted to help me… new generation…"

John frowned. That didn't make any sense at all. He looked Sherlock over one more time. His pulse was alright, if the smallest bit faster than normal, and John knew that fighting and dragging Sherlock to the hospital may well serve to worsen his condition, so he gave in with a lengthy sigh.

"Okay, but as soon as that concussion clears up, you're going to check your bloodstream for toxins, and if you start acting in the least bit strange, we are going to the hospital." John said, not liking it one bit, but the concussion was very light, and Sherlock should be better soon. Plus, if he had been attacked last night, any poison introduced into his bloodstream would have probably killed him by now.

Sherlock nodded groggily, then lay down on the sofa, curling up into a ball and shivering slightly. John looked at him for a second—Jesus, he had been outside all night, hadn't he? He sighed, and took Sherlock's coat off of him as best he could without disturbing him, which was pretty tough considering Sherlock had curled himself up into a tight ball of freezing detective.

John brought Sherlock another cup of tea and draped a blanket over him, staring worriedly at the madman. Why, and how, did he keep managing to get himself into these situations? He was lucky he didn't get hypothermia, or pneumonia. He sat down in the chair across from Sherlock, and drank his own tea in silence.

~O~.~O~

A few hours later, Sherlock seemed to be recovering. He sat at his microscope, looking down at his blood sample, as per John's suggestion and his own curiosity.

"Nothing's there." He complained.

"What?" John asked, confused. If the stranger had injected him with something, it should have shown up in his blood stream.

"There's no sign of any foreign substances in my bloodstream whatsoever." Sherlock continued, sitting up from the microscope and glaring at it.

"Well, there should be something, because he definitely jabbed you with a needle." John said, crossing his arms. Then he frowned, thinking. "Unless there was nothing in it…" John continued contemplatively. Sherlock scoffed.

"Of course there was. Why else would you jab someone with a syringe?"

"To scare them?" John looked over to Sherlock. "Certainly gave me a fright." Sherlock shook his head.

"No, he was talking about the end of the world, and a new generation…" He grimaced, and rubbed his temples.

"I can't quite remember…" he said, closing his eyes. John frowned at this. There was almost nothing Sherlock couldn't remember if he didn't want to.

"You didn't delete it, did you?"

"No, John, of course I deleted my only conversation with a man who injected me with a substance that has mysteriously disappeared from my bloodstream!" Sherlock drawled, sarcasm dripping from every word. John huffed.

"Well, that's probably a side effect from whatever he injected you with… can you remember anything else? What were you doing beforehand?"

"I was at a crime scene at 1401 Bruxton st. with Lestrade and Anderson, though Donovan was mercifully absent. The victim had been stabbed twice in the throat, once through the eye socket, and three times in the stomach. Obviously a first time murderer, wanted to make absolutely sure she was dead. He also took her purse and jewelry, luckily her phone was in her purse, Lestrade tracked it, and he was apprehended in thirty minutes. He was, oddly enough, at the library, trying to cancel her library card. All in all, a complete imbicile." Sherlock rattled everything off at his usual speed, describing the whole deal in slightly disturbingly vivid detail. When he was done, he frowned.

"Interesting… whatever it was seems to have been able to blur my memory from only the 7 and a half minutes in which I interacted with him… Very, very well done." He mused appreciatively. John frowned at him.

"Sherlock, if whatever it is was that sophisticated, don't you think it's a good idea to go to the hospital and make sure there's nothing else wrong? I'm sure there are going to be other side effects, and we still don't know what the main effect is supposed to be!"

"To be reborn…" Sherlock murmured to himself, wondering why of all things, those three ominous words were what he remembered.

"Sorry, what?" John asked. Sherlock looked at him for a second, and then waved his hand vaguely.

"Nothing, John." John was already on the brink of forcing him to the hospital, no need to push the matter. Nice try, but we both know you just don't want to worry John. You don't like it when he's unhappy. A voice in his head teased. Sherlock scowled at it.

Neither of them said anything for a while, and finally, John sighed, then got up and went to sit in his chair, grabbing his laptop.

"You better not be putting this in your blog." Sherlock warned.

"No, just checking it." John replied. Sherlock nodded. He didn't know exactly what was going on, and that disturbed him immensely. He sat quietly in the chair, trying desperately to remember whatever he could about the conversation, or the man he had had it with.

"First… coming generation…"

"Armageddon…"

"will be reborn…"

Sherlock frowned, and wrote it all down, not realizing how ridiculous it all sounded until it was staring at him in black and white. Reborn? Armageddon? The man was clearly delirious. But there had been something about him… no, he couldn't quite remember. The man was nothing more than a vague suggestion in his head. He knew there had been a man, but that was all. Sherlock groaned, massaging his temples again. He had a monstrous headache, and he hadn't even been high or drunk or sleep-deprived to have earned it!

He glanced briefly at the wall where he usually hung up all his case information, then stuck the paper with the scraps of conversation into his pocket. For some reason, he didn't want this particular case (because case it was- complete with a victim and an attacker and a frustrating and beautifully challenging lack of data) up where anyone could see it. Finally, he stood up and grabbed his coat, still damp from last night. He started for the door but stopped when John asked,

"Where are you going?"

"To the alley where I was attacked."

"Great. I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not." Sherlock said, hoping there was enough finality in his voice to dissuade John.

"Right, yeah, you're just going to go back to where you were attacked and injected with… god-knows-what, without me." Of course not. John stood up and grabbed his coat.

"John…"

"Sherlock. I am coming, and that's final. Why would I not come, anyways?"

I don't want you to get hurt. Sherlock opened his mouth, then shut it again quickly. Was he really about to say that? No, he couldn't have. Yet the phrase was right there on the tip of his tongue, and annoyingly, still seemed to be waiting for him to say it. He frowned, and shook his head slightly, and then locked it away in a remote room in his mind palace, marking the door with yellow spray paint. Surveying his work briefly, he blatantly ignored the countless other doors marked the same way. Sherlock didn't care. End of story.

"Fine, come along. I don't care." He growled, ignoring the voice behind the door that was insisting that this was a really bad idea, then whisked out of the room and flew down the stairs, without looking back to make sure John was following. But of course he was.

~O~.~O~

Sherlock looked down the alley, and cursed. Whatever evidence there might have been was, of course, covered completely in half a foot of snow. Of course, one of the few times London ever got some heavy, lasting snow, and it had to be right now. He glared at the alley, scanning it for any evidence at all that might remain uncovered, but there was nothing. Then he remembered the CCTV cameras. He sent a quick text to Mycroft, hating himself as he did so.

Need footage from camera 35 in the alley off of Baker Street from the past two days. SH

May I inquire as to why? MH

No, not your business. SH

Of course not. It will be emailed to you. Be careful, brother. MH

Sherlock rolled his eyes, then turned around and started walking back to the flat, John following close behind. As they walked, Sherlock felt a strange twinge of pain in his chest and back, but, with his mind otherwise occupied with trying to piece together the scant clues and information he did have and growling over the information he didn't, it hardly seemed important. However, that combined with the cold and the growing headache made for a seriously disgruntled detective when they got home.

Sherlock stretched out on the couch, and opened his laptop. Sure enough, there was a new email from an untraceable address, with a video. Sherlock opened it, and, fast forwarding to yesterday night, watched the grainy footage. And then he watched it again. And again. But there wasn't much helpful data to be gleaned—the man had managed to hide his face from the camera the entire time, and the scant lighting in the alley meant that his posture was unreadable as well. So Sherlock watched the events playing out with a frown, but it wasn't just because of the near uselessness of the video. Something wasn't sitting quite right with him, watching something that had happened to him without being able to match a memory to it. He had no recollection of any of it- him entering the alley, the man entering behind him, the exchanged words that he couldn't hear on the film, and then, the only part of the video that was worth the time it took to watch it. Sherlock tried to push past him, and the man went from standing in one spot to moving and standing in front of Sherlock at an almost inhuman speed. And then the man somehow managed to get him in an armlock, and inject him with the syringe, then walk away. Sherlock watched this part again and again, trying to figure out how the man moved that fast, but there seemed to be no explanation, at least not from the horrible, grainy footage. He eventually gave up, rubbing his temples in an attempt to dispel the persistent headache. But it was no use.

Sighing, he put the laptop on the table, then lay back on the couch. He slipped immediately into his mind palace, trying to figure out what he could from the foggy memory. Meanwhile, John was still reading his book, something about a Hobbit.

When Sherlock came out of his mind palace, the flat was dark and John wasn't in his chair. Must've gone to bed then. Sherlock went to sit up, but then lay back down, hissing slightly in pain. His shoulders were as sore as if he had tried to lift a building, his spine felt red-hot, and his head seemed as heavy as a bag of bricks. He groaned slightly, then sat up slower, bringing a hand to his forehead, which was screaming hot. He thought about calling John, but then thought better of it. John was asleep, no use waking him. He decided to go to bed himself, and stood up, swaying slightly as the room seemed to wobble around him. He blinked a few times, then winced at the harsh light of the headlights that scraped across the ceiling of the room as a car drove past on the street.

He wandered to his bedroom, closed the door behind him, and collapsed on the bed, not even bothering to take off his shoes. He was out, dead asleep within a minute.

~O~.~O~

When Sherlock awoke, it was in the early hours of the morning, 2 or 3 am. As he opened his eyes, he was immediately aware of one thing—pain. He thought he had been in pain the night before, but this was much, much worse. His head pounded and his chest felt like it had been slashed with razor blades on the inside. It was difficult to breathe, let alone speak or call for John, which he was regretting not doing at this point. But worst of all was his back. He felt like someone was trying to cut through the skin of his back with red-hot spoons, and he couldn't bear it.

But he couldn't move, as even the slightest motion sent a wave of agony through him, leaving him gasping for air. So he lay there, skin hotter than the sun, muscles screaming, bones splintering, brain straining to break free from his skull. Said brain was currently racing to try and come up with some explanation, but every time he got near to a possible answer, another searing wave of pain would crash over him, leaving him incapable of any coherent thought.

So instead he focused on continuing to breathe, in and out, in shallow rasps that seemed to stab his lungs with tiny daggers, and further agitate the pain in his back. Finally, he decided to at least try and get some sleeping drugs, to ease him of this nightmare. He lay perfectly still, gathering his strength. Then he took a deep breath and sat up.

But the searing pain that wrenched its way through his core, all the way out to his fingers and head was so volatile, so sharp, that all he could do was fall back on the bed, a strangled scream wrenching itself from his throat. And when his back hit the bed, he felt like a searing white light flashed behind his eyes, blinding him, until he saw no more.

~O~.~O~

Sherlock woke up, and upon realizing that the pain was mostly gone, he carefully stood, stretching his stiff shoulder muscles. Then he paused, feeling something… strange, on his back. It was as if someone had put two pieces of tape right between his shoulder blades, making the skin pull uncomfortably. He reached around to feel the spot where the odd sensation was coming from, but instead of feeling flat skin through the shirt, he felt two…bumps on his back. He frowned, and quickly took off his shirt, moving towards to mirror to get a better look. He stood in front of it, and twisted around, trying to see. And when he did, his mouth dropped open.

He stared at the mirror, unable to comprehend what he saw. There were little nubs sticking out of his back, covered in soft, black down. Feathers.

Wings. Albeit tiny ones.

What?

They itched slightly, and he moved his trembling hand to try and scratch them, in much the same way that one would reach out to pet a tiger. He put his hand on the soft feathers, and was terrified to see that they were real. He wasn't hallucinating, he wasn't dreaming. What he was, was growing wings.

But that was impossible! People didn't just grow wings out of the blue—in fact, people weren't supposed to grow wings at all!

Suddenly his arms felt heavy, and he felt a cloud of sleep settle around his head like a blanket. No, no! I can't sleep now! What's going on?! I have to stay awake, have to figure out…

But his body refused to obey him, and he fell on his back on the bed, out like a light.

~O~.~O~

When Sherlock woke up again, he was still tired. How the hell was he still tired? From the light streaming in from the window, he deduced he had been out for at least half a day. But it was a struggle to keep his eyes open, and his body felt like lead. He reeeeallly didn't want to move. And he had had the strangest dream… Just then, he heard a knock on his door.

"Sherlock, you alright?" John asked, his voice muffled by the thick wood. Sherlock couldn't muster up the energy to reply.

"Sherlock?"

After a few seconds, Sherlock heard the doorknob twist, and the door started to open. He shut his eyes, thinking that if John thought he was asleep, maybe he would leave him alone and he could go back to sleep. That's all he wanted really, to sleep more.

Apparently, his ploy worked, because a few minutes later, the door closed again, and Sherlock heard John's footsteps going away, towards the kitchen. Thank god. He drowsily wondered why he was sleeping so much; he rarely slept at all, usually.

Maybe growing wings takes a lot of energy… His groggy, sleepy brain suggested.

Wait… what?!

But it was too little, too late. He was asleep again.

~O~.~O~

When Sherlock woke up the third time, he was feeling much better. The pain had all but subsided, and he wasn't quite so tired. He sat up, and immediately fell forwards, as a strange weight pushed him over. His chest was now pressed against his knees, and he was staring at the ground, confused. In his peripheral vision, he saw two dark masses falling past his ears.

Oh. Oh, no.

The memories, even the sleepy, loopy ones, came rushing back to him. With some effort, he stood up, and made a beeline for the mirror. And when he got there, he stood mute for a good ten minutes. He had never been in shock before. Apparently this was what it felt like. His breath caught in his throat, and he probably would have laughed at the comical look of surprise and horror and shock he was wearing. But he didn't, because he was far too busy looking at something else.

That something else was the giant, jet-black pair of wings arcing gracefully from his back.

They were full grown now, probably about 6 meters in wingspan, and looked positively enormous compared to his own thin frame. But how was that possible?! He turned around slowly, looking at them from every possible angle. He reached out to pull one around to look at it better, and nearly dropped it in shock, because he had felt it. When he put his hand on the wing, he had felt it, exactly as if he had put his hand on his head or arm or leg. It was connected to his nervous system, then. Part of him.

Not knowing how much longer his legs could keep him standing, Sherlock sat down on the bed, and the wings shuffled themselves so that he wasn't sitting on the long primary feathers. He stiffened as he felt the foreign sensation of the new muscles moving, new bones shifting. This wasn't possible. It just couldn't happen! Humans weren't designed to do this!

And yet it had happened. Sherlock buried his face in his hands, wondering what he should do. He couldn't go out in public like this! He was…

What was he? Suddenly, the word Freak echoed around his mind palace, knocking things over and spilling the carefully arranged files. It sounded suspiciously like Sally Donovan, and he couldn't catch it, couldn't lock it away. He was a freak, now. Despair settled around him like a fog, and his head began to unhelpfully supply him with what would happen next. It showed him John's kind face twisted into horror and disgust, Mycroft looking disappointed as always, him being strapped down to medical tables, being poked and prodded by government agents… NO! Thinking like that would get him nowhere; he shook his head vigorously, banishing the thoughts, and awakening a mild headache.

Suddenly, everything seemed to fall into place. The headaches, the pain, the hunger—all of a sudden, Sherlock realized he was ravenously hungry— it was because his body was sprouting two new appendages, his DNA was becoming warped and twisted, something not human, something…new.

The man in the alley. This was his fault. He had injected Sherlock with whatever was in that syringe, and it had made him…this. I suppose this is what he mean when he said I would be "reborn", Sherlock thought bitterly. How dare he do this to him?! Anger boiled in his veins, and he vowed, right then and there, to a) figure out what was going on, as well as what the man's motive was, b) find out if anyone had met the same fate as him, and c) to find and stop the man at any cost.

But first, he needed to eat. A whole cow, preferably. Except, he obviously couldn't go out to the fridge like he was, wings all higgledy-piggledy behind him, as obvious as the nose on his face. The image of John's horrified face popped unbidden into his head again, but he pushed it away. One problem at a time. He stood up again, a bit easier now that he was getting used to the weight of the wings on his back, and he noticed that they didn't hang completely limp behind him, they stayed slightly lifted, as if ready for flight.

Pushing the instantaneous and confusing questions about possible flight that accompanied that observation away from his head, Sherlock took a deep breath, and tried to relax the wings completely. They obeyed immediately, falling to the floor and pulling on his shoulder muscles uncomfortably. In a knee-jerk reaction, he lifted them again, and then stopped, marveling at how simple it was to move them. They obeyed like his arms or legs, except they weren't. They were… wrong. Not human.

Annoyed, he pushed the worried thoughts out of his head, focusing on the task at hand, and his growling stomach. Finally, he lifted them slightly higher, and then, after some experimentation, managed to fold them in towards his torso. They folded rather compactly against his back, and Sherlock breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe this was a workable situation after all. When he looked in the mirror, he saw that they were still visible from the side, however. Thinking briefly, he decided to wrap them using some ace bandages from the medical kit.

Except the medical kit was in the bathroom. Outside his bedroom. Sherlock frowned, and put on an old, loose-fitting T-shirt and his dressing gown over it to try and hide the alien appendages, then looked in the mirror, and guessed that it would have to do. The bathroom was just on the other side of the hallway, after all. All he had to do was open the door, move across the hall, and lock himself in the bathroom. It shouldn't take more than five point two seconds, according to his estimation. And yet it felt like a marathon.

He stood in front of his door, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves. He pressed his hear against the wall, which was thinner than the door, and listened carefully. He heard a slight tap-tap-tap, and after a few seconds, realized it was the sound of John typing on his laptop. How could he hear that? He supposed that along with the wings, he was also given enhanced hearing, and he scowled. He had been just fine as he was, thank you very much.

Except you were lonely…

Sherlock growled at the latest in a long line of annoying thoughts he didn't want to have. To shut it up, he pushed open the door, leapt across the hallway and quickly pulled open the bathroom door, stepped in, and pulled it closed behind him, being careful not to catch any of the long, thin feathers in the doorjamb. He locked the door with trembling fingers, then let out a deep breath.

He turned around, and started searching for the first aid kit. Locating it, he opened it up, grabbed the bandages, and started wrapping them around his torso, tight enough that it would somewhat flatten the wings, but not so tight that he couldn't breathe. The end result was uncomfortable, to say the least, but at least the wings weren't so visible anymore. He glared at them in the mirror over the sink. Why did this have to happen to him? He hadn't wanted this, and his life would never be the same again, that much was obvious. He started rattling off things that he couldn't do anymore in his head. Swimming was out, not that he did much of that anyways. Comfort as a whole was out, if these bandages were anything to judge by. Lying down on his back was out. Going to the doctor's or the hospital was out…

Oh. That was going to pose a problem.

The longest stretch of time Sherlock could remember going without getting injured was three weeks. Three weeks, that was it. He couldn't get injured on cases anymore, because John would want to help him fix it. And then John would want to see the wound, which would mean Sherlock would have to take his shirt off, and then the wings would be on full display. And that could not happen.

Sherlock took a deep breath. One problem at a time. His stomach loudly reminded him that the problem he should be focusing on right now, was food. Food sounded good. Food sounded glorious, in fact. Never before had Sherlock wanted to eat so badly. Not even after a long case, when he wouldn't eat at all for a week or more. Taking one last glance in the mirror to make sure that he definitely, positively, one hundred percent could not see his wings, (his stomach still did a weird flop when he thought of his wings) he stepped out of the bathroom, and made his way to the kitchen. He took deep breaths, trying to calm down his heart, which seemed quite insistent on beating at a million miles an hour.

When he got to the kitchen, he went straight for the refrigerator. He pulled it open, and, to his dismay, found it full of experiments, not food. Damn.

"John, you need to go to Tesco." He said. John looked up from his laptop.

"And a very good morning to you too, Sherlock." John responded dryly.

"John, you need to go shopping." He repeated. He hated repeating himself, but hey, whatever it took to get food.

"Why?"

"Because there's nothing to eat!"

"Wait… you, Sherlock Holmes, want to eat."

"Yes, John, are you completely daft? Go to Tesco!"

"Why don't you go, if you're so hungry?" John asked, looking back at his laptop.

Because I've got wings, John! I can't go out in public! He wanted to scream, but instead, he sat down at his microscope, and schooled his face into a bored look.

"Too dull." He replied carefully. He heard John sigh, and after a moment of deliberation, John stood up. Sherlock almost smiled, he knew that John's natural worrying about him getting enough to eat would trump his annoyance.

"Fine, what do you want?" John asked tiredly.

"Two fried chickens, a loaf of bread, three packages of biscuits. And…milk." He finished lamely, tacking on the milk just for good measure, as if it would make the rest of his request seem normal. It didn't work; John looked at him like he had sprouted an extra head.

"Big experiment, then?" he asked. Sherlock turned around, and looked John dead in the eye.

"I'm. Hungry." He said seriously, with just a hint of a threat in his voice. John must have heard it, because he shook his head slightly, then left the room.

"Be quick, John!" Sherlock shouted after him as John's footsteps pounded down the stairs.

~O~.~O~

Far too long after that, Sherlock heard the key in the front door, then the door opening, and John cursing quietly under his breath. Very good hearing, then… He sighed in relief—even the experiments in the fridge were starting to look good at this point. He started tapping his foot impatiently as John ascended towards 221B. Did it really take that long to climb one set of stairs?!

Eventually, John opened the door to the flat. Sherlock stood up, and rushed over, grabbing the bags out of his hands and setting them on the table. He ripped open the first fried chicken and started to dig in.

John stared incredulously as his flatmate, who rarely ate at all, ingested more food than he should have been able to fit in his stomach, with all the zeal of a man who had never tasted food before in his life. Two fried Chickens, half a loaf of bread, three quarters of the milk, and two packages of biscuits later, Sherlock sat back in the chair, finally satisfied. John was still gaping at him, but Sherlock didn't notice.

"Jesus, I guess you were hungry." John said eventually, as he started to throw away the empty cartons and packages.

"Yes, John, I said that." Sherlock drawled.

"Well, yeah, but… I've never seen you eat like that before!"

Sherlock merely grunted in reply. Then he sat forwards, and stood up.

"I'll be in my room." He supplied, walking back towards his bedroom.

"Wait, Sherlock…" John said hesitantly. Sherlock stopped and turned around, slight panic flaring up in his chest. Had John seen his wings somehow?

"Are… are you okay? I mean, I know that guy stabbed you with a needle that we still don't know what it was filled with, and then you slept for two days and then ate enough to satisfy an army." John's kind blue eyes were filled with concern, and Sherlock was sorely tempted to tell him everything. He was sure John could help him, but there was also the chance that John would simply walk out of the flat and never return. And Sherlock couldn't risk that. Finally, he mustered up a weak smile.

"Yes, John, I'm fine. Just… sleeping off whatever it was, I suppose."

And with that he continued towards his room, shutting the door behind him and burying his face in the pillow. He was mortified to feel the telltale stinging behind his eyes that foreshadowed tears; Sherlock Holmes didn't care. This was just another obstacle, and he would figure out a way around it.

But, if he had decided to be honest with himself, he would see that that was bullshit. He wouldn't admit it, not to John, or Mycroft, or even himself, but he was terrified. This was so outside the realm of anything "normal" which was already a pretty big realm, for him. He had no idea what to do, and he couldn't think of anyone to turn to. Not if he didn't want to end up alone again, or on a dissection table. No, Sherlock would have to figure it out by himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey guys! In case any of you are following me, and are wondering about my other fic, The Blue Box on Baker Street, I know I'm really late on that, and I'm sorry. The plot bunnies remain frustratingly elusive for that. But here is Chapter two, without a doubt the longest chapter I have ever written. Yay! Anyways, thanks to anyone who is bothering to read this, and special huge thanks to everyone who reviewed! Please note I still have no idea where this is going. Well, maybe some idea. But not much.**

**Disclaimer: I still own nothing. You'd know if I did. I'd be bragging, or passed out for a while from shock.**

To distract himself, Sherlock got to work tracking down the man who did this to him. After some internet research, he had found a vast multitude of websites boldly proclaiming the "end of the world!" But none of them mentioned a new generation, or anyone going around stabbing people with syringes and changing their DNA.

He tried typing in the various phrases he could remember from his conversation with the man, and discovered something. He could remember the whole thing, now. What the man looked like, how he spoke, what he said. His memories were no longer foggy and unsure. He wondered why that was, and then had a startling thought. This… change he had experienced had made him grow wings, and enhanced his hearing. Who knew what else it had done. Could it have done anything to his brain?

He closed his eyes and sank into his Mind Palace, thoroughly checking every file, every room, every corner, to make sure nothing was tampered with. When he was satisfied that all was as it should be, he opened his eyes, and saw that the light had changed again. It was now evening, and he had been out of it for about nine hours. He stood up and sighed, opening the door of his room and walking into the sitting room. John wasn't there, he had probably gone out to the pub or something.

Sherlock sat down with a map, and started looking at it, marking where he had first noticed the man was following him, then the alley where he had confronted him, then the direction the man had taken after he had stabbed him. He then began thinking about the man himself, trying to recreate an image of him in his mind and deduce it for more information. He had had a nice coat, about 300 pounds, along with a silver ballpoint pen in his breast pocket. Worked for a well-off company then. Slight dents on his nose indicated that either he wore reading glasses or safety goggles, further analysis of the shape of the dents said goggles. So he was a scientist or engineer. But no graphite or whiteboard marker residue on his shirtsleeves. Scientist.

Then, the door opened, interrupting his thoughts. John entered the room with more grocery bags.

"Oh, I see you're awake. Good." John said upon entering.

"You went shopping again." Sherlock said, surprised.

"Well, yeah, you ate pretty much everything I brought home this morning, so…" He glanced back at Sherlock, who grinned. John put away the groceries, then picked up a pile of mail and started sifting through it.

"Oh, hey Sherlock, this one's for you… no return address." John said, handing a thin white envelope to Sherlock. He took it, and turned it over in his hands, deducing it. Standard envelope, was opened only once, sent from the post office, not dropped into a box. In the middle of the envelope was light writing, all caps, and it said

Sherlock Holmes,

221B Baker Street,

London, England.

That was all. A single stamp sat on the corner, but it was the kind you could buy from the post office, so no clues there. He finally opened it, and inside was a single sheet of white printer paper. On it was written three simple lines of text:

We should meet for tea.

367 Brindley Rd. at 3:00 today.

Do you like the new you?

Sherlock glared at the paper, and had to resist the childish urge to tear it into a million tiny pieces and set it on fire. He checked his phone, it was 2:30. He stood up, and put on his coat, then left the flat without a word.

"Sherlock? Sherlock where-?" John started, but heard nothing in reply save his flatmate's feet pounding down the stairs.

"Shit." He growled, putting on his coat and following him out the door. John was still worried about his friend, and the thought of him running off on his own through the city so soon after his odd behavior rang a few warning bells in John's head.

Exiting 221 Baker Street, John saw a glimpse of Sherlock's coat disappearing into a cab. John flagged one down himself, pointed to Sherlock's cab, which was just leaving, and told the cabbie,

"Follow that one please. Stupid prat left me in the dust again."

The cabbie grinned at him, then pulled away from the curb and followed the cab through London.

~O~.~O~

John watched as Sherlock's cab pulled up and let him out in front of a large brick building on Brindley Road, which seemed completely nondescript. Sherlock got out of his cab, paid the cabbie, and entered the building, all before John's cab even reached the curb. John got out and reached for his wallet, but the cabbie waved him off.

"Go catch your friend, he looks like he's in a bit of a state." He said kindly. John smiled thankfully at him.

"Thanks, mate."

"Don't mention it." As the cab drove off, John raced into the building to try and catch the runaway detective.

Sherlock walked briskly through the building, into a large, lobby-like room, and when he saw that it was empty, he flew up the spiral staircase, taking the steps two at a time. His blood was boiling, pushing him ever faster to the man that had done this to him. Once he was up the spiral staircase, he arrived on a landing, which extended into a hallway. All the doors were closed except one. Sherlock walked as fast as he could down the hallway, rounded into the open room, and inside was the man from the alley. He was staring out a window, holding a glass of whiskey and smiling faintly. The man turned around, and noticed Sherlock.

"Ah, Mr. Holmes. So glad you could join me. Please, sit." He gestured at a tea service set up on a table. Two high-backed chairs sat at either end of the table, but Sherlock shook his head.

"I think I'll stand, thanks." He ground out, trying his best not to start attacking the man. The man shrugged, and sat down, pouring himself a cuppa.

"Well, I'd bet you have questions." He said, grinning.

"Who are you?" Sherlock asked immediately. This would allow him to obtain the most information, no matter how pressing his other questions were.

"You may call me Mr. Park."

"And that is your real name?" Sherlock asked skeptically. Mr. Park only smiled.

"Perhaps. Next question."

"Why?" the word was out before he could think about it.

"The end of the world, of course." Mr. Park responded calmly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"There is no end of the world." Sherlock growled, but Mr. Park only shrugged in response.

"When it comes, you will thank me." Sherlock glared at him.

"But why would you think that changing humanity would save anyone? You're not saving humanity, you're saving—"

"Humanity two-point-oh." Mr. Park finished for him, raising his glass. "how does it feel?" He smiled, as if he had bestowed a great gift upon Sherlock.

"Feel?" Sherlock spat. "_Feel?!_ It feels _wrong_!"

"Such is the price we must pay." Mr. Park nodded sagely, not effected in the slightest by Sherlock's rising temper.

"You're not paying anything!" Mr. Park grinned maliciously, his eyes glinting in a way that made you want to turn tail and run and run until you weren't within fifty miles of him. But Sherlock stood his ground.

"Who says I'm not?" Sherlock blinked, then recalling Mr. Park's faster-than-possible movements in the alley, finally understood. Mr. Park was a "Chosen One" as well.

"Then you know how to fix it. Reverse the process." Sherlock said hopefully.

"No. The change is permanent. It cannot be reversed, and besides, there is nothing to be fixed. You are not broken, Mr. Holmes, you are better." The man said simply. Sherlock shook his head angrily.

"No, no, there has to be a way! I can't live like this! You have to fix it!" Sherlock raged.

"I am sorry Mr. Holmes. Hopefully, in time, you will come to see this as the blessing it is, instead of—"

"Sherlock?" John called out, from the hallway. Sherlock froze. Had John been following him? How much had he heard?!

"John?!" Sherlock whipped around, and saw John standing, confused, in the door. "John, how… how long have you been standing there?"

"Not long, what, ah… what's going on here?" John asked, gesturing to Sherlock and Mr. Park.

"Ahh, nothing. Nothing at all, John. You can go home now." Sherlock said hurriedly, glancing back at Mr. Park, who was smiling maliciously.

"Mr. Holmes here was just questioning me as to—"

"Don't you dare!" Sherlock rounded on the man with full force and fury, glaring at him with every ounce of anger he had in him.

"Don't you dare say a _word,_ or you will find yourself cast out of this country and hunted by Interpol within the day." Sherlock growled, making a mental note to check with Mycroft that this was a legitimate threat he could make. But for now, he just needed this man to not ruin everything in front of John.

The man stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded with a blasé smile, and walked towards the door.

"I will be keeping in touch, Mr. Holmes. Let me know if you run into any… complications." And with that, he was gone.

Sherlock stared after him for a second, then all the air seemed to run out of him, and he partially collapsed, leaning on a nearby chair. John hurried over, looking worried, and reached out a hand to put on Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock jerked back, away from John.

"Don't touch me!" He snapped, then sighed at John's hurt look.

"Please, just… don't." Sherlock muttered, his voice coming out low and shuddery. He cursed it for betraying his weakness.

"Sherlock, what's going on?" John demanded. Sherlock merely shook his head, unable to muster up a decent lie. John sighed, and ran his hand through his hair.

"Sherlock, if you don't tell me what's going on, I can't help you. You can tell me anything, alright? I won't judge you, I promise. I won't even call Mycroft, if that's what you need. Just please… tell me something. You've been… off, ever since this morning." John begged.

Sherlock looked into John's eyes, which were filled with concern, and marveled at how much John seemed to _care._ He weighed the pros and cons, and though this issue begged to be let out of his head and he desperately wanted John's help, the thought of John leaving, of thinking he was a freak, tore his heart in two. He simply couldn't bear it. John had been the only person who had ever shown him kindness, who had understood him so completely, since Redbeard. He couldn't lose John. He had never considered himself someone who would become attached to anyone, but he finally had to admit, he cared about John as well, a weakness though it may be.

_He said he wouldn't judge you…_ said a voice in his head. _Yes, well, he didn't know what he was promising._ He shot back. Finally, he spoke.

"I… I can't."

John sagged slightly, and his weathered face showed a look of pity and sadness. He thought Sherlock didn't trust him.

"John, please understand. I want to tell you, truly I do. I just… can't. I'm sorry." Sherlock begged.

"Sherlock, why—"

"John, you don't get it. It's so bad, so wrong, I can't even believe it myself. I won't push it on you too. Just let it go." Sherlock stared at the floor, hating just about everything. Himself, Mr. Park, the wings, his inability to separate his heart from his head.

"I don't care." John said simply, breaking the silence. Sherlock turned to him, confused. John shrugged.

"I don't care, Sherlock. I don't care how bad it is, how wrong it is. I. Want. To. Help you! Why don't you get this?" he continued. Sherlock shook his head.

"You don't want to help me." He told him. "Trust me." He turned around, and started walking out the door. Then he felt John's hand on his shoulder, turning him around.

"You bloody wanker, why—"

Sherlock froze, and his heart seemed to stop beating. John may not know it, but he had his hand directly on top of Sherlock's right wing, causing little electric sparks to travel through every feather from the point of contact. He panicked, hoping desperately that he had bound them tightly enough.

"John…" he managed to choke out. John hesitantly took his hand away, and then Sherlock turned on his heel and left the room without looking back.

John followed Sherlock out of the building, then when he got outside, Sherlock was hailing a cab. John kept walking, and was a bit shocked when he held the door open for him. He had left so abruptly, John was almost certain he would have taken his own cab. John climbed into the cab, and Sherlock got in after him, giving the cabbie the address, then lapsing into silence. John really didn't want to push Sherlock, but he needed to know at least a little bit of what was going on.

"So… can you at least tell me who that was?" John asked hesitantly.

"The man who attacked me in the alley." Sherlock replied after a moment, his voice cool and calm, still staring straight ahead. John's jaw dropped open.

"That was—Sherlock! Why didn't you tell me? Why did you just let him leave?!" Sherlock didn't look at John, and his face devoid of any emotion. But John had lived with him for long enough to see the cleverly covered fear and despair in his eyes.

"I need him free."

"Why the hell do you need him free?" John asked angrily. He was really starting to hate this man, who had done whatever it was that had made Sherlock act like this.

Sherlock didn't answer. John sighed, and sat back in the seat, frustrated. He was no closer to any explanation of what had happened between Sherlock and that man in the alley, or after. John went over the last words he had heard between Sherlock and the man. Sherlock had been shouting, so it was easier for him to understand him, but he had only caught a fragment of what the other man was saying.

"…_can't live like this! You have to fix it!"_

"…_as the blessing it is, instead of—"_

John tried to puzzle out the meaning of the snippets of conversation, but he couldn't quite understand it. However, now that he knew who the man was, it made a little more sense. Was Sherlock possibly referring to the effects of whatever was in that syringe? Maybe… John decided to check him when they got home, make sure nothing was too out of the ordinary. Because one thing was for sure, that syringe had done _something…_

~O~.~O~

When they got back to the flat, Sherlock left John to pay the cabbie, as per usual, and went inside. John followed him, and when he got up to the flat, heard the distinctive slam of a door as Sherlock locked himself in his room, again. John sighed. So much for checking him.

Sitting in his room, Sherlock went back to the little information he had about what had happened to him. However, the only thing that he could think about was what Mr. Park had said about the change. That it was permanent. He was going to have these huge wings stuck to him for the rest of his life.

He sighed. There was nothing he could do, if Mr. Park was to be believed. And Sherlock had seen no evidence that he had been lying.

He stood up and took off the bandages, letting them fall to the floor. He shook out his wings, and stretched them gingerly. If felt good to let them out, let them breathe. He had only gone one day, and he could already tell that keeping them bound like that was going to be painful. But he was lucky that he could bind them at all, otherwise… he didn't even want to think about it.

Noticing that the feathers were in a slight disarray, Sherlock awkwardly started combing through them with his fingers, setting them back where they were supposed to be. He discovered that his wings were very sensitive, which explained the hot flashes of pure awareness that he had danced through his nerves where John put his hand on his wing earlier. He paused in his task, and realized that that was another thing he would have to be careful of. He recalled the odd flash of _something_ that had seemed to grip his heart in an iron clamp, how his head had felt momentarily stalled, incapable of thinking about anything except John almost touching his wing. If that were to happen, say, in the middle of a case, who knows what could go wrong. He shuddered, then continued combing through the feathers to distract himself from that line of thought.

Once he had finished, he reluctantly folded his wings back up, and was about to put on the bandages again when he heard the front door open and close. John had gone out. Sherlock let the wings sit as they wanted to, and sat down on a stool to look at his information some more, the inky black feathers cascading behind him like a waterfall.

~O~.~O~

Sherlock should not have been surprised when he saw the black, official looking car waiting for him outside the flat. He glared at the car for a few moments, as if it were personally inflicting this bane upon him. Then he sighed, and got into the car, knowing that if he didn't, he would simply be shadowed by inconspicuous black cars until he did. Sometimes he hated his brother.

Okay, most of the time.

As the car traveled through London, Sherlock wondered what case Mycroft had for him, and tried to push down the fear that he had missed a video camera in the flat, and that Mycroft had seen his wings.

The car arrived at a small brick building shortly, and Sherlock got out, grumbling to himself as he entered the building's double doors. Inside, Mycroft's PA, Anthea, or whatever she was calling herself now, was waiting for him. She glanced up from her phone momentarily when he entered, then looked back to it, standing up and guiding him to the office Mycroft was occupying at the moment. Mycroft never stayed at one office for very long, and was constantly moving around. Anthea, however, was always present. She seemed to be a staple, just like the sweets.

When Anthea stopped walking and gestured to a deceivingly small door in the hallway, Sherlock entered wordlessly, and walked up to his brother, who was sitting behind the desk.

"Mycroft, this had better be good."

"So impatient, Sherlock." Sherlock glared at him until Mycroft sighed, then folded his hands on the desk, glancing up at his younger brother with a look of bored disinterestedness.

"After you asked for the video footage of that alley, I had my team analyze it, as a safety precaution." Sherlock scoffed, but Mycroft ignored him and continued.

"And then at their urging, I watched it myself. Sherlock, do you have any idea who that man that attacked you was?" Mycroft's gaze was intense, and Sherlock wondered how much he knew.

"No." he lied smoothly. Mycroft nodded.

"And have you experienced any… effects, after the incident?" He asked, glancing casually down at the newspaper on his desk, as if he didn't care in the least what Sherlock's reply would be. Did Mycroft know about Mr. Park and what he was doing?

"No, I haven't." he answered simply. "May I go now?" Mycroft stared him down for a minute, his cool, calculating gaze irritating Sherlock as it always did, but now there was an element of apprehension as well.

"You're lying." Mycroft finally said, and Sherlock's stomach plummeted to the floor.

"No, I'm not." He did his best to sound annoyed instead of fearful, and was thankful when his voice didn't tremble. Truthfully, his brain was on high-alert, fear pumping through every vein until it filled him up entirely.

"Yes, you are. You shifted to face me as soon as I asked, and your left hand twitched, as if you wanted to move something, hide something. What aren't you telling me, Sherlock?" Mycroft asked, narrowing his eyes. Sherlock cursed his brother for the thousandth time that week. Why couldn't _he_ be the smart one, just for once?!

"I'm not hiding anything!" He growled. Mycroft leaned back in his chair.

"Then you wouldn't mind allowing one of my doctors check you? Just to be sure." He asked, and as that predatory smirk lifted the corners of his lips, Sherlock knew he wasn't bluffing. He clenched his hands into fists to keep them from trembling.

"Mycroft, I have things to do."

"No, you don't. No cases, no research, lord knows you aren't going grocery shopping. You will allow yourself to be checked for any ill effects from that injection, or I will place you under house arrest."

Sherlock scoffed.

"Yes, because that was _so_ effective last time."

"Be that as it may, I feel as though you may be more inclined to follow the rules when your John is the one enforcing them."

Sherlock's blood turned ice cold. The threat was so bone-chilling that he even ignored Mycroft's use of "your John."

"You wouldn't."

"Sherlock, you should know by now the lengths I am willing to go to, to ensure your safety. I am sure Dr. Watson would be more than willing to assist in this for the same reason. He is greatly and rightly worried about you, you know."

Sherlock glared at Mycroft with every ounce of venom he could muster, but it was no use against his brother's cold stare. Finally, he realized that Mycroft was not going to back down. He was stuck. And so he did what any sane man would have done in his place.

He bolted.

He slammed through the doors of Mycroft's study, and raced down the halls, but upon turning a corner he was tackled to the ground by a security guard. Sherlock twisted around, managing to punch him in the face and wiggle free. But then he felt a sharp prick in his arm, and he fell down, the room turning to a spinning, blurring mess within moments. He'd been hit with a sedative.

As the foggy image of his brother approached, Sherlock realized that there was no other way out. He was going to get checked by a doctor, and then said doctor would see his wings, then report to Mycroft, and then Mycroft would see them… and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. So, in his last seconds of consciousness, he did the only thing he could think of to keep his entire life from going down the drain. He reached an unsteady hand out towards Mycroft and pleaded—

"Don't tell John. Please."

~O~.~O~

When Sherlock woke up, he was in a hospital bed, hooked up to the usual number of beeping machines. He looked around the room, and saw that it was a private hospital room, standard issue, but what cought his eye immediately were the X-rays hung up on the walls… of his wings, it looked like. He sighed, and then noticed his brother sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, observing him.

"Mycroft." He grumbled. Mycroft stood up, swinging his umbrella slightly as he made his way to Sherlock's bed.

"Oh, Sherlock, what have you done to yourself now?" He asked quietly. And if Sherlock didn't know better, he would have said that he saw some actual sadness in Mycroft's eyes. But he did know better. There was nobody who was better at not caring than his brother.

"_I_ didn't do anything. It was the man in the alley. You didn't tell John, did you?" He asked, trying not to look as frightened as he was of the answer.

"No, we have not told him anything. You've only been here for five hours. You can come up with a decent excuse for being gone that long, can't you?"

"Yes, of course." Sherlock scoffed, glancing back at the X-rays. Mycroft followed his line of vision, and then walked over, picked up the X-rays and brought them back for Sherlock to examine.

"They're really very well done, you should consider yourself lucky." Mycroft said idly, looking around the room at anything that wasn't his brother. Sherlock looked at the pictures, marveling slightly at the thin bones and elegant feathers, which were little more than shadows on the photo. But still.

"Lucky?" Sherlock asked harshly.

"Sherlock, what happened to you is years and years ahead of what science is capable of today. If you asked any genetics lab in the world to replicate this," he gestured to the X-rays "You would end up with a monster, a big jumble of genetic garbage. Technically speaking, this should be impossible."

"Well, then whoever did this must have access to something you don't." Sherlock observed, grinning slightly at the thought of his brother not having everything at his fingertips. Mycroft sighed at him.

"Yes. But luckily for you, you seem to have been doing a decent job of hiding this, so I see no reason to remove you from London." Sherlock looked up at his brother, and frowned.

"Remove me from London?"

"Sherlock, there are scientists out there who would kill to get their hands on you. If you are in any way in danger, I will relocate you, for your own safety."

"I can take care of myself, Mycroft. So sod off." Mycroft rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then looked back at Sherlock, the cold, threatening smile on his face.

"Of course, brother." He started walking out of the room. "You will be escorted back to Baker Street." He called over his shoulder. "Don't do anything to make me have to step in." he glanced back at his brother, then left, closing the door behind him with a soft _click._

~O~.~O~

Over the next few days, Sherlock tried to get used to the wings. But they remained stubbornly strange and impossible and fascinating. They were intriguing in the same way that a frog born with six legs was intriguing—you were equally amazed and horrified, and you thought it was kind of cool, even though you knew you shouldn't. He would wake up early in the morning to stare at them in the mirror, stretching them to test the limits of their mobility, moving them so that they raised little gusts of wind, but he stopped doing that after he accidentally blew the curtains open, because he was still deathly afraid of being found out. It was bad enough that Mycroft knew, but he didn't want anyone else to know of this deformity. Because as interesting as the wings were, it didn't change the fact that humans weren't supposed to have wings at all. He was haunted day and night by the fact that he was wrong. Impossible, in Mycroft's words. He had spent his entire life immersing himself in facts and logic, and now he himself defied all of that. It was unsettling, to say the least.

But the Earth didn't stop spinning because he was a walking impossibility. No, life kept on moving forwards as it always had. He and John still solved cases, Mycroft settled John's fears about the contents of the syringe with some convincing lie about incompetent killers and botched assassination attempts, and 221B continued to be strewn with papers and photos on the wall next to the bullet holes.

Sherlock merely ignored the wings until he was alone in the flat. He ignored the scratchy pain that plagued them under the bindings, and how his coat didn't fit quite right anymore. He ignored the odd feeling that bothered him whenever he went outside, how when he looked up at the sky his wings would twitch eagerly under his shirt. He thought it might be the impulse to fly. Then he shut that thought up in the remotest, coldest, darkest vault in his mind palace.

He also ignored the impulse to show someone, anyone, besides his brother, who didn't really count anyways. Because while he didn't want to end up on a lab table, he also wanted to be able to let the wings move as they pleased every now and again, something that was impossible in the small flat. He didn't like this wanting feeling, but he couldn't ignore it completely. Sherlock had never had trouble keeping secrets before, so he couldn't understand for the life of him why he wanted to share this one so badly.

He _really _wanted to tell John.

This was what he had to work hardest to ignore. He didn't like lying to John, and hated how he had to hide from him, how he had to literally clench his jaw until he got a headache to keep the traitorous words from spilling out. Because if Sherlock did tell John, he would leave. His kind face would twist into a mask of horror and disgust, and he would walk out of 221B and Sherlock's life forever. That's what Sherlock would do, in his place. And while he had to admit that that wasn't exactly in keeping with John's character, it was still a possibility, and Sherlock couldn't face the idea of the flat being empty. Of not seeing John ever again, with his ridiculous jumpers, and crap telly, and surprisingly amazing tea.

So he said nothing, going about his routine as normal. Ignoring the wings and all the problems they brought, keeping the frustration inside his head, where nobody would see it.

However, he didn't ignore his hearing and sight, which he discovered later had been enhanced as well. These senses were so much sharper now, alerting him to the slightest noise or movement, that he had no choice but to utilize them. They served him well on cases, when he saw clues he never noticed before, or ones he would have seen, but now noticed so much faster. He was in and out of crime scenes within minutes, and when Lestrade mentioned it in passing, Sherlock muttered some excuse and started slowing down some, purposely taking more time then he needed to keep up appearances.

And so he worked through the issue, knowing full well that ignoring it was not the healthiest option, but it was the only one he had the courage to act on. Not that he would admit that was the reason. Instead he told himself that it was the smart option.

But soon enough all of the hard work he had done to lock all his fears away would be ruined. He just didn't know it yet.

~O~.~O~

Two weeks after The Wings, a date that no matter how hard he tried, Sherlock couldn't erase from his memory, it came. Well, it turned out to be a she.

Sherlock heard a knock on the door, and ignored it. John glared at him. He smirked. The knock came again, and again. Each time it was ignored. Then, the knock changed in intensity, and a muffled voice shouted through the door,

"Mr. Holmes?"

Sherlock wondered briefly why Mrs. Hudson hadn't removed whoever it was from the street before remembering she was over having tea with Mrs. Turner. He sighed, and got up, going to the door.

Upon opening the door, and was surprised to see a girl standing there. She seemed about 15, pale skin, long straight brown hair, a long face and sharp nose. Large aviator glasses covered her eyes, and she wore a floppy, dirty blue hat over her head, and a bulky, dingy brown jacket dwarfed her thin frame. If Sherlock weren't smarter than the average person, he would think she was part of his homeless network.

Now, he had seen children come to him for help on cases, frivolous as they were (he still had tangled emotions over the bluebell case, and the HOUND issue) but he could tell she wasn't here for a case. She held up a small brown book, and started talking as soon as he opened the door.

"Hello, sir, have you found Jesus? Sinners must beware, for there is little time left to prepare for Judgment day."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Some religious fanatic. He started to close the door.

"sir?!" as the door swung shut, she raised her voice, speeding up to try and get the last of her message across.

"The end is coming! The chosen ones must rise to drag humanity out of the rubble! You could be chosen!"

The door stopped closing. Sherlock paused, as he remembered the exact same words, coming from the man that had injected him in the alley. He wondered whether or not she worked for him, but with John in the other room, he couldn't interrogate her properly. He opened the door slightly, and the girl was still there, mouth open slightly with expectation.

"Please sir. The chosen ones, I have to help them. I'm their guide. I can be your guide. You could be chosen to survive the end."

So she fancied herself a helper to these "chosen ones" then. And she obviously wanted to know whether or not Sherlock was one. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell whether or not she was being honest, with her eyes hidden and her posture blurred by the jacket. He frowned, and took out a piece of paper from his pocket, scribbling something out on it. He held it out to her, and she took it quickly, folding it between her fingers and slipping it up her sleeve before Sherlock realized she was doing it. An experienced pickpocket, then.

"Thank you sir." She bowed her head slightly, and made to leave.

"Who would want to survive the end of the world anyways?" Sherlock asked as she went to the stairs. She paused briefly, glancing over her shoulder, and replied so softly, he wouldn't have heard it without his hearing being enhanced,

"Doesn't matter what we want."

And then she was gone.

~O~.~O~

_The girl walked out of Baker Street casually, as if her heart wasn't thumping away inside her chest like a goddamn base drum. Was it possible? Had she finally found him? He _was_ a detective… the words of the man who had made her echoed softly inside her head._

"The detective will soon be saved. Then the rest will be ready."

_She unfolded the piece of paper he had handed her, and read the scrawling, spidery script, idly noticing that the man's handwriting was almost as graceful and ethereal as the rest of him. The note was simple:_

Midnight. Regent's Park.

~O~.~O~

Sherlock sat on the bench in Regent's park, looking around, deducing. It was 11:58. As the clock ticked ever forwards till the new day, he grew more and more impatient. Going by her earnesty and desperation on the landing, he had judged that this was of extreme importance to her, and suspected that she would be exactly on time.

He had judged more of her than that as well. In fact, due to the disappointing lack of cases, Sherlock had had nothing to think about except the strange girl. He analyzed her clothes, her hair, her stance, her tone of voice, everything he could. So he noticed immediately when she started talking.

"Nice place you picked out, real secluded and quiet. This city is so damn noisy, you know? I suppose it's good noise, though. Cars, people. Life."

The girl's voice, with a heavy American accent, seemed small in the large space, and Sherlock glanced over to her, standing under a street light, leaning against the green pole. The character change from the girl who had knocked on his door would've been startling to anyone else, but Sherlock had deduced that she had been acting pretty early on.

"As opposed to?"

She obviously wanted to think herself in control of the situation. Sherlock didn't move from the bench.

"Whirring drills, beeping machines, cage doors slamming. Do you know how many mistakes you have to make before you get a miracle?" she asked, walking closer. Sherlock didn't reply.

"You are the Chosen one. The first chosen one. Aren't you?" She asked, arms crossed.

"I was chosen to be stabbed with a needle by a random man in an alley." He replied simply.

"And then you grew wings." The girl's blunt statement didn't surprise Sherlock, based on what he had seen so far of her personality. He considered lying, but the girl seemed to know already anyways, and he figured being honest would get him the most information.

"Yes. And I suppose you know something about that?" He asked, raising an eyebrow expectantly. She didn't say anything for the longest time. Then, a grin spread across her face, and she uncrossed her arms, holding out a hand.

"You could say that. My name's Elise. I'm your prototype. It's a pleasure to have finally found you."

Sherlock only stared, confusion flooding his system.

"Prototype?" he asked. She sat down on the opposite arm of the bench, facing him.

"I'm one of those mistakes I mentioned earlier." She said with a wry grin. She pulled down her sunglasses, and in the harsh light of the streetlight, Sherlock saw that her eyes were a bright, flat gold. Sherlock frowned.

"Yeah, I was surprised to see yours were pretty normal. I was sure they'd never work that bug out. Tough to give you better vision without changing your eyes."

"I would imagine. Enhancing someone's vision must be difficult." Sherlock said casually, trying to figure out how much she knew. The girl laughed.

"Only the best for humanity's saviors. Wings and vision and hearing and a sense of direction and better intelligence, all necessary for a better human." She rolled her eyes.

"Hm. Well, I wouldn't have noticed the intelligence. I wonder if that even did anything…"

"Yeah, heard you were some sort of genius." She said conversationally, as her fingers absently drummed out some fast rhythm on the bench. Sherlock paused, listening to the rhythm, Moriarty's little code trick fresh in his memory. She noticed, and folded her hands in her lap.

"Sorry, nervous habit. Better than spinning knives though…"

"You have a nervous habit of spinning knives?" Sherlock asked. He glanced at her hands, and saw callouses that did indicate excessive blade practice.

"Heh, yeah. Never know what you might learn in New York. Anyways, I'm getting off topic. I'm here because I want to help you."

"Help me do what?" He scoffed. "A homeless girl, alone, running from something, with nothing but skills with a knife and a guitar to help her as she hides beneath bridges and in abandoned warehouses? What could you possibly do?"

The girl stared at Sherlock with wide eyes. Slowly, she brought her hands together and started clapping, loudly, with eons of space between each one.

"Well, they certainly weren't exaggerating, I'm getting why they picked you now. Bit insensitive, though." She added the last bit to herself, and Sherlock ignored it, not quite sure whether it was an underhanded insult or a casual observation.

"I can help you learn how to use your gifts, embrace the changes. It takes a while, and lord knows _I_ could have done with a few tips."

Sherlock sighed. He no longer wanted any part of this conversation.

"I don't need your help. Thank you, but goodbye." He stood up, and started walking away.

"You've figured out echolocation then? Finding magnetic deposits?" she paused for effect. "Flying?"

Sherlock stopped, midstride. A familiar pang went through him, his wings twitching under his jacket at the thought of flying. He turned around to face the girl, furious now.

"No. I have not _flown_" he spit the word out with contempt. "I don't practice listening or seeing or whatever you think has been _enhanced_ in me. I didn't want any of this, and I will continue to steadfastly ignore it, as I have been doing. I don't want to embrace this genetic anomaly that I have been made into. I did not want wings, and I don't want you here, trying to _help_ me either! So I'm going to leave, right now, and I never want to see your face again!"

The girl stood, facing him, her face impassive.

"So that's your plan then? Ignore it?" she asked simply, then after a moment turned around, and walked away, farther and farther from the light. Soon, Sherlock couldn't see her anymore in the gloom, and thought she really had left. But then he heard her voice, sounding flat and sharp in the still air.

"You're going to ignore how you can hear the TV across the street, huh?" He felt something grab at the sleeve of his coat. He whipped around, but there was nobody there.

"You're going to ignore the text messages on people's phones that you can read from blocks away?" Then he was pushed, and something grabbed the back of his coat, tripping him so that as he fell, there was nothing he could do about it, and the coat was ripped away from him, and flung into the darkness. He still couldn't see the girl. A small flare of panic made him glance around, trying desperately to see her, but to no avail.

"You're going to ignore how every time you walk outside, the open air calls to you, singing through your veins? How the clouds beckon you to join them?" Still on the ground, Sherlock felt a boot step on his left arm. Strong hands grabbed his right arm, pulling it up and exposing his side. Then a knife sliced through his shirt, and with horror, he realized that the bandages had been sliced through as well. He struggled, but the girl grabbed a handful of the bindings, pulling them away with her as she disappeared into the shadow again. Now Sherlock was panicking, pulling his wings in tighter, desperately trying to hide, to get away. He scrambled to his feet, and started running in the opposite direction.

"You're going to just ignore" She stepped in front of him out of nowhere, her face calm, her gold eyes glinting dangerously. She punched him in the stomach, causing him to sag slightly, then with the knife, she cut away his shirt in one clean motion.

"The huge-ass wings _growing out of your back? You're just going to ignore that?!"_ Her voice raised to a shout towards the end, as she gestured to his wings, fury spilling out through her facial features. His wings had relaxed without him wanting them too, falling away from his back to relieve the pain they had endured while being bound. The panic flared from a small flame to an all-engulfing inferno, as he realized he was out in the open, where anyone could walk by and see the Baker Street detective with his wings held aloft.

Though he was about a foot taller than her, Sherlock felt as though he was being looked down on. She slipped the knife back into her belt, then she unzipped her jacket. Underneath, she was only wearing a black camisole, and with a slight shake of her shoulders, her own wings unfolded behind her, spreading out to their full width, (which Sherlock noted was smaller than his) the feathers shining dull, dusty browns and golds and greys.

"We are still human, Sherlock Holmes. We're just more than human, as well. What we are… It can't be ignored."

"It's _wrong_." He spat out, his voice shaking only slightly.

"Yeah, no shit. But who said that's a bad thing? What would the world be without a few wrong things in it?"

"Better." He said firmly, but his voice had lost its venom. For the longest time, he had thought he had been helping rid the world of these wrongs, but now he was one of them.

"Maybe. But also boring." Her features softened slightly. "There's different kinds of wrong, you know. We're the good kind of wrong. The kind that makes the world interesting. Different. We exist—we shouldn't, but we do. So we have to deal with it."

"I _was_ dealing with it." Sherlock growled. She shook her head.

"You were hiding from yourself. Look me in the eyes and tell me that's "dealing with it"."

Sherlock couldn't reply. The girl sighed, and folded her wings in, putting her jacket back on. She bent down, and picked up something, and when she handed it to Sherlock, he realized it was his Belstaff.

"That's a good coat. But you can't wear coats inside." The unspoken words rang through the park, echoing through Sherlock's Mind Palace.

_You can't hide forever._

As Sherlock buttoned up the coat, the girl sighed again, then took out the small brown book she had been holding earlier.

"My only purpose, back at the compound, was to help the Chosen one, by experimentation, or editing my genes, or whatever. There's not much else I can do. And that's what I'm gonna continue doing, whether you want me to or not. So, if you ever need anything, let me know. Even just to complain, or ask questions, or whatever. I'm kinda an expert at this by now, so…" She held out the book, and warily, Sherlock took it, putting it in his pocket. She looked at him for a few more seconds, then stuffed her hands in her pockets.

"I wish you strong winds, Sherlock." She grinned humorlessly, then turned on her heel and left, a pile of bandages and a brown feather left where she had been standing.

Sherlock deposited the now-useless bindings in the nearest trash bin, and slipped the feather into his pocket next to the book. Then he started home, his shoulders trembling with the effort of folding his wings in as tight as they could fit beneath his shoulder blades.

**Closing A/N: Sorry if you guys hate OC's. I promise this one won't be around too much… the story isn't about her and DEFINITELY NO SLASH WHATSOEVER. Thanks, and please review! I love to know what you guys think, and if you have any ideas you'd like me to try. Or if I make a mistake. (I have no beta, so they're all mine…)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I AM SO SORRY I KNOW IT I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON AND MY UPDATES ARE AS FREQUENT AS A LACK ABOUT WEATHER COMPLAINTS IN THE MIGHIGANIAN WINTER. Life has gotten out of hand and inspiration hath abandoned me. Poor, overused excuses, I know, but that's the truth. Sorry a thousand times. Okay, I know I said the OC wouldn't be around too much, but she's pretty important plotwise, so she'll be here quite a bit for this chapter at least, probably the next… two or so? I've no clue. I'm doing my absolute best to not have her follow the typical OC trope, I would be overjoyed to hear how I'm doing on that. Also, I HAVE A DEFINITE PLOT NOW YAAAAYYY! Important note at the end.**

~O~.~O~

When Sherlock got home, 221B was mercifully silent, meaning that John was still asleep. Sherlock sighed in relief, then hung up his coat and made his way to his bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, and his wings opened the rest of the way, stretching out so the tips brushed against the walls. He turned over the book and the feather in his hand, both of which he had retrieved from his coat before he hung it up. This new development was equal parts terrifying, relieving, and annoying. The fact that he wasn't the only person out there who had giant wings was an immense relief for some reason that he couldn't identify. However, that girl, Elise, had also ripped away Sherlock's layers, both literally and metaphorically, leaving him frightened and vulnerable. Which he despised.

But, the way she had melted into the shadows as if she weren't quite substantial was creepy, by anyone's standards. And her surgical precision with that knife was impressive, especially for someone so young. He grudgingly had to admit some little inkling of respect for her, but that did not _at all_ cover for the fact that she had forced him to show his wings in a public park! What if someone had decided to take a late-night run? _Then she would have been caught too. She showed you _her_ wings, didn't she? _A voice in his head asked. She had stretched her wings out to their fullest, putting her more at risk than Sherlock, who had desperately tried to hide his own feathered appendages.

Despite all this, she was a possible asset, and the only one he had right now. He glanced at the brown book, then opened it up a page marked with a yellow sticky note. On the page, she had written "If you need me, put the sticky note on the window."

Looking through the book, he saw not much writing, but lots of drawings, and lots of hastily drawn music staves, with lumpy notes drawn in, then erased, then drawn somewhere different. So she was a composer, of sorts. But it was the drawings that intrigued Sherlock. There were a bunch of what looked like aliens, and an old police box was drawn multiple times. There were also some instruments, a bowtie, and the solar system, as well as different blobs that may have been galaxies, but they were drawn in pen with little talent, so it was hard to tell.

He added all this to the girl's file in his mind palace, then lay back in bed, falling asleep instantly. He dreamt of flying that night, and of being strapped to medical tables. Panic and freedom swirled in his head in a complicated dance that felt a lot like chases through London with John.

~O~.~O~

A week later, he waited until John was asleep, then glared at the book for a good five minutes before he ripped out the sticky note and slammed it on the window. Two minutes later, he heard a knock on the door. Opening it, he saw Elise standing there.

"Roof?" She asked, and he nodded, leading the way to the roof of the building. Once they were up there, she sat down on the edge of the building, which was raised about half a meter, and looked up at Sherlock.

"What's up?" she asked, her voice not smug or condescending, but patient and open. Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, thinking. Elise said nothing, but continued to sit silently as Sherlock tried to construct a decent sentence.

"How…" no.

"Why is it…" no, again.

"I…" definitely not.

Sherlock huffed, and gripped his hair with both hands, a moment away from tearing it out of his scalp. He was confused and upset, and just a little bit freaked out. He still couldn't get used to the giant wings, and he was just… frustrated with them.

"Overwhelmed?" Elise suggested. He nodded, glaring at her.

"Yeah, it'll do that to people. Can you just not get used to them, or…" Despite the fact that that was exactly his problem, Sherlock was feeling particularly testy, so he sneered, and said,

"No, of course I've gotten used to the giant wings attached to my back!"

"Well, you seem to be doing pretty okay, I mean, you haven't been found out yet, that I can tell." Sherlock glared at her full force.

"Okay, so you did get found out?" She guessed, unsure.

"My brother." He snarled, starting to pace the roof impatiently.

"Oh, well, that's good."

"No, it's not." He retorted, scoffing at the very idea.

"Ah, okay, some sort of sibling rivalry or something?" she asked. He rolled his eyes—John was so much better at this. But he couldn't talk to John about this, so he was stuck with the girl.

"You could say that."

"Well, is he going to report you?" she asked. "'cause I can help you get out of London real quick if you need to hide or whatever." Sherlock shook his head.

"No, he's not going to report me." He growled.

"Then what's so bad?"

"It's MYCROFT!" He exploded, shaking his hands in the air for emphasis. Elise blinked a few times, then held her hands up placatingly.

"Okay then, brother, Mycroft, not a good thing. Gotcha. …But you're in no immediate danger, right?"

"No."

"Well, you got that going for you. And hey, you're not on a table, or in a cage."

"But I could be."

"But you aren't. So you're okay there." Sherlock sighed, and plopped down on an overturned box, burying his head in his hands.

"Ugh, why did this have to happen to me?" He groaned to himself.

"It's not so bad…" Elise said quietly. Sherlock looked up at her and glared.

"How. Give me one reason as to how this is in any way not the most horrible thing to have ever happened to me."

"You can fly." She said simply, shrugging her shoulders. "It's pretty great, have you tried it yet?" Sherlock scowled.

"No."

"Still in denial then." A glare was her only answer. She sighed.

"Listen. I know it sucks. You had a life and stuff, and now you think you don't. But you still do, I mean, look at you! Aside from getting found out by your brother, you seem to be continuing your life as usual! That's better than what I got."

"What'd you get?" He asked venomously.

"Well, I was kidnapped, pronounced dead, and then experimented on for five years. Not exactly a picnic."

"But then they let you go." She laughed at this.

"Not really, no. They tried to kill me. Gave me one of those doses they use for the death sentence, then tossed me out back in the dumpster to be burned. Except they miscalculated the dosage or something, 'cause I woke up two hours later on fire. Put myself out, ran away, ended up here." She shrugged, staring at the ground.

"That sounds…interesting."

"Glad you think so."

Sherlock stared at the ground, and Elise seemed content to let the silence stretch on as long as it needed to. In truth, that sounded awful. Being nearly killed, then set on fire, then having to run away with nothing but the clothes on your back—if she had even had that. But he didn't say so. After a while, he managed to ask an actual question.

"Why does it hurt so much to bind them up? It doesn't hurt when I just fold them in, so why do the bandages make it so painful?"

"Probably because you're tightening them too much around the wing joints, or at the pressure points. See, your wings have pressure points, just like the rest of you. Do you mind… showing me, so I can point them out to you?" her face was open and honest, and Sherlock hadn't seen any indication that she meant him harm, but he was still hesitant as he took off his jacket, then undid the bindings and slipped the wings through the slits he had cut in the old T-shirt he was wearing. Up on the roof, safe from nosy eyes or surveillance cameras, he let his wings stretch out as much as they wanted, until he felt like they were almost scraping the stars off the sky, even though that was impossible.

Elise stared at his wings openly. They were easily twice her wingspan, and a dark midnight blue that shone eerily in the light of the stars and moon.

"Wow… they're beautiful." She breathed, awe written on her face like calligraphy. Sherlock frowned and glanced up at them, at the way the feathers blotted out the stars, then seemed to blend into the sky. He shrugged, not knowing how to respond to a compliment on the unwanted appendages. Suddenly, he wondered what John would think of them. Would he say they were beautiful? He shoved that thought away, locking it up in his mind palace. Of course he wouldn't, he'd think he was a freak, and rightfully so. Elise, however, was a freak herself, and seemed to insist that his wings were something special.

"No, c'mon, you have to appreciate that. They're gorgeous." She insisted, opening her own wings, which seemed small and weak besides his. He nodded reluctantly, and she folded her wings in.

"Anyways, here, I'll tap which spots you should avoid with a pencil." She pulled a Ticonderoga out of her jacket pocket, and wiggled it slightly.

"Turn around, please. And sit down while you're at it, you're like, twenty feet tall."

"No I'm not."

"Just shut up and sit." Sherlock rolled his eyes and sat down.

"Why don't you stretch out this wing," she pointed to his right wing, which he stretched out sideways.

"Okay, I'm being careful not to touch with my hands, alright? I'm just using the pencil."

"Why are you making such a big fuss about that?" He asked. From behind him, he could hear Elise pause, thinking.

"Because your wings, if they're the least bit like mine, are super sensitive. Skin to feather contact is a big no for me, but I don't know about you, so…" she shrugged.

"I don't care." He said nonchalantly. With all the vulnerability he had been showing recently, he was more than eager to regain some of his "sociopath" persona.

"Well, I really don't think…" She sounded nervous.

"Are you afraid of me or something?" He turned around and asked, and she frowned.

"Of course not."

"Well you're acting like a coward. Just…" He glared at her, and grabbed her hand, dragging her forwards despite her worried protests, and placed it on his wing to show his point.

The reaction was immediate—unpleasant shivers roared down his spine like freight trains, and he twitched violently, jerking his wings away from her touch as fast as he could. His breath caught in his throat and little painful jolts of electricity fizzled through every vein, pulsing to the ends of his feathers, making him shudder. He felt like the spot she had touched had been dipped in ice water, so cold it burned him, and his mind kept spitting out a litany of _wrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrong!_

He fell to the floor, pulling his wings close in around him and putting his own hand on the spot where he had put hers, trying to make the horrible sensation go away. His breath came in pained gasps, and he was shivering violently.

"Sherlock, are you okay?!" He faintly recognized Elise calling his name, but he didn't reply.

"Sherlock, look at me. Focus. Open your wings, come on." That was the last thing he wanted to do. With his wings wrapped around him, he felt oddly safe, protected in the dark. Usually he would abhor the idea of hiding behind those monstrous appendages, but now he was so shell-shocked that he took whatever comfort he could get. Elise growled.

"Sherlock, you have to open your wings! Listen to me, goddamnit! Look at me right now, I am not going to let you go into shock!" She reached through the gap in his wings, and grabbed his hair, jerking his head back so he was looking at the sky. The electricity in his veins seemed to swirl together with the stars in an odd bout of synesthesia, until he was falling into the sky, wings and veins and stars and darkness... She pulled his head back farther so he fell over backwards, landing on the rough pavement of the roof.

"Look, pavement, okay? Focus on that. That's solid rock or concrete or whatever, beneath your hands. Sherlock, focus on the surface of the roof." Brain spinning from sensory overload, Sherlock obeyed without thinking, digging his fingers into the concrete, feeling the dust and dirt that lay on it.

After a while, his head cleared, and the electricity fizzled away, leaving his wings numb and tingling with exhaustion. It took a little longer for his heart rate and breathing to come back down to normal, but eventually they did, and he propped himself up, blinking a few times.

"What… What was that?" He asked weakly, once he regained the ability to speak. Elise let out a sigh of relief when he seemed to be okay.

"I told you, you idiot, your wings are sensitive. Just one touch, and you get sensory overload and go into a sort of shock." She took a deep, rattling breath. "Don't do that again, you nearly gave me a heart attack." He glanced at her, and saw that she looked worried, for whatever reason. But he didn't feel like thinking too much about it, so he just nodded, then leaned against the raised edge of the roof. After a few minutes of silence, he managed to muster up the strength to say,

"I'd still like you to show me those pressure points." She laughed slightly, then stood up again.

"Seriously? After that, you still want me to?" he nodded at her, lacking the strength to glare. She raised her eyebrows, impressed. "…Alright. Stretch out the wing, then." She instructed, obviously surprised that he didn't want to stop for now. He complied, resting it on the ground so the trembling was less visible. Less, being the key word there. Elise sighed.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock." She said quietly. Then before he could reply, she held up the dropped Ticonderoga, and waved it about a bit.

"Pencil, see?" He nodded gratefully, not wanting to go through that ever again, if he could help it.

"Here, sit so I can get to your wing." She asked, and he shifted so he was leaning sideways on the wall, and Elise was facing his back.

"Okay, when I tap the pencil, it'll feel like this." She tapped the pencil lightly on the top of his wing, and Sherlock was relieved to find it didn't send him into a fit again.

"It's just other people's skin that makes you feel like that, I found." Elise said conversationally as she looked over Sherlock's wing for pressure points. "Inanimate objects, clothing, your own skin, those aren't bad at all." He nodded, filing the information away.

"Alright, so, your joints are right here," _tap._ "And here and here." _Tap tap. _"You wanna avoid those, if at all possible, and then you have pressure points right around here," _tap._ "And here…" _taptaptap._ "And then this whole strip from this joint to right here is pretty sensitive." The pencil lighted down next to the second joint, then dragged quickly down the feathers in a diagonal line.

"Think you got it?" she asked, and Sherlock nodded. "Show me."

She sat in front of Sherlock, and took off her jacket, spreading out one wing and holding the pencil behind her head for Sherlock to take. He grabbed the pencil, and was amazed at how much she seemed to believe he wouldn't hurt her. If he could do to her what he had just experienced, then she was taking a huge risk putting herself in the position she had.

"Well, go on. Pressure points and stuff." She said. "Night's a-wasting."

Sherlock quickly pointed out all the joints and pressure points, then handed her back the pencil.

"Yep, that's about it. Just try to not bind those spots too tightly, and with the joints, try not to put any bandages on them at all, if you can avoid it. That should make it a bit more bearable." Sherlock nodded, and handed her back the pencil. She smiled softly.

"Man, you look bushed. Go to bed." She said, laughing quietly.

"But I have more questions."

"Yeah, and I'll answer them, but the sun will be coming up soon. I gotta get back home, and you need to get back down there before your flatmate wakes up, right?"

Sherlock's eyes opened wide as he remembered that John was still back in 221B. He folded in his wings, grabbed the bindings, and put on his coat again. Elise grabbed her own coat, and Sherlock started for the door to the stairwell, pausing when he noticed the girl wasn't following him. She was stepping up to the edge of the roof, then stepping off…

He ran to the edge of the roof just in time to see her open her wings and land softly on the ground, grinning back up at him. She gave a little half-wave, then walked out of the alley. Sherlock watched her go, then went back to his flat, looking forwards to some rest. He was exhausted.

~O~.~O~

The next morning, he woke up to the sound of John making tea in the kitchen. He sat up, stretched his wings, and then bound them, carefully avoiding the joints and pressure spots Elise had showed him. Once he had finished, he noted with satisfaction that it was much more comfortable. Maybe the girl was useful after all…

He got dressed and went to the kitchen, where John was pouring the now-made tea.

"Morning, Sherlock." John said sleepily. Sherlock grunted something that sounded slightly like a greeting, and sat down at the table, going back over his notes from a previous experiment. Just then, Sherlock's phone went off. He glanced at it, and saw it was a text from Graham.

**1457 Holland St. Get here now. GL**

He frowned, unused to that tone from Lestrade. He glanced up at John, who sighed, and set down his tea.

"That's Greg, isn't it?"

"Greg?"

"Lestrade. Come on, I refuse to believe that you still don't know his name."

"Not important. What is important, is the case. I'd say, based on the text, that this is at least an 8." John's eyebrows nearly met his hairline.

"Really?" he asked. When Sherlock nodded, he stared forlornly at the cup of tea for a moment, then drained it, and put on his coat. Sherlock was already standing by the door at this point, and once John got ready, he dashed down the stairs. _Is there anything that man _doesn't_ do in a hurry?_ John wondered as he followed him.

Once in the cab, Sherlock texted Lestrade.

**On our way. What is it? SH**

**Suicide. But it's the strangest damn suicide I've ever seen. GL**

**That's what you always say it is. SH**

**No, we're pretty sure this is an actual suicide. But that doesn't matter, we really need you over here to prove how idiotic we are again. GL**

**Is that sarcasm, Graham? SH**

**It's Greg, you bloody idiot. And no, it wasn't. GL**

Sherlock reread the texts a few times, trying to figure out what Lestrade was talking about without any real information. His wording suggested that it wasn't the suicide itself that was strange, but maybe something about the victim? And the way he actually wanted Sherlock to prove them wrong was odd in and of itself—usually he didn't like it when Sherlock complained about their idiocy. That indicated that there was something about the case that they didn't quite want to believe, something that was obvious…

His train of thought was interrupted when the cab stopped moving. Sherlock got out of the cab, and immediately entered the building. John got out a moment later, sighed, paid the cabbie, and then followed him in. The apartment wasn't big or extravagant, but it was elegantly decorated, with streamlined furniture and chrome and glass everything. Sherlock deduced that it was a woman, mid-30's, single, and dedicated to her work, which was civil engineering, all before they passed through the sitting room. Lestrade was waiting for them just on the other side of the sitting room, and his face changed from haggard to relieved when he saw them.

"Sherlock, John. Thank god you're here."

"What is it, why is this so different?" Sherlock asked immediately. Greg glanced up at the taller man, then shook his head.

"You really have to see it for yourself. You're going to love this one." He said with dry humor. He led the way to what Sherlock assumed would be the woman's bedroom. As they went, Greg gave them the brief details on the woman.

"Leslie Cale, age 37, was found dead this morning when her boyfriend stopped by. No history of depression or anything, completely healthy, except for the obvious."

"And what's that?" John asked quietly. But they had arrived at the door to the woman's bedroom, and Greg just angled his head towards the room, inviting them to go see for themselves. Sherlock frowned, wondering what was so bad about this case, and stepped inside the room. He had planned to look at the room first before going to the victim, but his attention was drawn to her immediately. Leslie Cale was hanging from the ceiling by a rope noose, her face pale, and her lips blue. But that wasn't what made Sherlock go cold for a minute.

It was the large pair of soft grey wings that hung from her back, as lifeless as the rest of her.

"Oh my god." John whispered softly. He moved closer, carefully examining the body without touching it.

"Are they…"

"Real? We think so. They're not glued on or anything, anyways. That's where we were hoping he'd flounce in, and tell us what was really going on here." Greg gestured to Sherlock, who was still staring, mouth parted slightly in shock. He couldn't believe it. Another Chosen one, apparently took her own life.

"Sherlock?" John asked, when he didn't say anything. Sherlock finally tore his gaze away from the woman, but knew that the image would be haunting his thoughts for a while. He blinked once, then moved forwards, examining the body as he usually did, although his mind wasn't completely on task. He looked over the woman, brain making deductions on auto-pilot. Another Chosen One? So soon? Mr. Park was certainly moving fast. He wondered how many others were Chosen, and who.

"Well, for once you were right Lestrade, it is a suicide." He let out a little disappointed sigh, and the DI rolled his eyes slightly.

"Okay, great, but what about the wings?"

Indeed, what about the wings? It would seem incredibly suspicious if he admitted to any knowledge about them, however, he was loathe to say he didn't know _anything…_

"Well, they do seem to be…real. John?" He stepped back, gesturing quickly for John to take a look, before stuffing his trembling hand into his coat pocket. He really wanted to run, get out of here, get away from that lifeless freak of a corpse…it made him think too much about himself. An image flashed through his mind, of him hanging from that noose, his own raven-black wings puddling on the floor beneath him. He shuddered and locked the image away in a cell in his Mind Palace. Now was definitely not the time to get distracted by such a base instinct as fear. So he just stood there silently as John looked over the body, fighting to stay calm and collected. And he was doing a pretty decent job of it, too, until John reached out and gently brushed one of the woman's wings with a tentative finger, and his heart leapt up into his throat. He had to focus immensely to keep his wings from trembling, and he swallowed past the lump in his throat. The memory of the horrible shock of Elise's hand on his own wing last night rattled in his head, and he winced in sympathy even though the woman was dead.

"…I really don't know what to tell you, Greg." John finally said, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. "She seems perfectly normal, except for the obvious…" He huffed as he realized he had just mirrored Lestrade's overly vague words before they had entered the room. "They seem to be… well, part of her, I suppose. Like they were supposed to be there." It didn't escape Sherlock's notice that John didn't look disgusted, just confused. He felt a small flutter of hope in his chest, and promptly squashed it. This was no time to be considering pipe dreams and delusions.

"Yeah, but they're not. People don't just have _wings_, right?" Lestrade insisted, turning to Sherlock. "Right?" His entire face was practically screaming his confusion and disbelief, and Sherlock was reminded once again of why he hid what had happened to him. This was how people were supposed to react. Confusion, fear, eventually hatred. That's what people felt about things that were different. He should know.

"Of course not." He managed to scoff, pulling out every last bit of acting that he could manage, blinking more rapidly than normal to show subtle confusion. He frowned, then turned, leaving the room.

"Send me the results of the autopsy." He called over his shoulder as he left the room.

"What? Sherlock—wait! I'm not sending this to Molly!" Lestrade shouted, dashing after him. Sherlock stopped and turned around.

"No?"

"No! Jesus, if this gets in the papers, can you imagine the mass pandemonium?! I have half a mind to send this straight to your brother, actually. This is _not_ my division. A freak of nature committing suicide…"

Sherlock didn't reply. Lestrade's words should not have bothered him. They really shouldn't have. He respected Lestrade as a vaguely intelligent police worker, but he didn't care about him any further than that. So why did _freak of nature_ keep echoing in his head? Why was this cloud of despair and _betrayal_, of all things, suddenly falling over his mind, paralyzing him? He shouldn't care. He didn't care.

_Freak of nature…_

Sherlock turned on his heel and left without another word. Lestrade could send the body to Mycroft, it didn't matter. He'd get the results somehow. He didn't care.

He didn't care.

~O~.~O~

When they got back to Baker Street, Sherlock immediately sat down on the couch and forced his trembling fingers to sit still in that steepled position under his chin, while John made tea. His mind was a whirling mess, and he needed to organize it into understandable data, and weed out those pesky emotions that had somehow managed to force their way in. He closed his eyes and entered his mind palace, while John silently poured tea, setting down a mug next to Sherlock that they both knew would go cold.

John knew that once Sherlock went into his Mind Palace he would be dead to the world for some indeterminate amount of time. So he sat quietly in his chair, staring at the wall. He still hadn't finished his book, so he could read that, but he didn't think that he would be able to focus on it much. He could still see the image of that woman, hanging from the ceiling, her silhouette strange and alien due to the wings.

God, wings.

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it. He had no idea how in the world that was even possible, but apparently it was. He was as eager to see the autopsy as Sherlock, but if Lestrade sent it to Mycroft, then he knew he wouldn't get to. He frowned.

"How is that even possible?" He asked himself. "I mean, wings, really?"

Sherlock, lost in his mind palace, was in the middle of organizing data, when John's voice drifted down. _"how…even possible…wings...?"_ He snapped himself out of it, looking up at John, trying to suppress the rush of panic. Why did John say wings? Were his wings showing? Did John know?

"oh, you're awake." John said.

"what did you say?" Sherlock asked, proud when his voice didn't shake.

"Oh, I was just thinking out loud."

"Yes, about what, what did you say?" Sherlock asked more insistently.

"I said 'how is that even possible? I mean, wings'…" John trailed off, considering his own question. "How did she have wings?"

A tidal wave of relief washed over Sherlock, and he let his head fall back. John was talking about the victim, not Sherlock. He was still safe. For now. But he still didn't have any information. Dammnit, his brain was refusing to work correctly, why?! Every time he tried to focus on the victim to look for information, all he could see were the wings, hanging lifelessly, unnaturally still. How wrong that had seemed, and it scared him. He couldn't focus. He had no idea what was going on, and it had seemed like a normal suicide, but something about it had been…off, in a way that Sherlock couldn't quite put his finger on, or trace back to a piece of data. It was infuriating. He kept turning it over and over in his mind, completely forgetting that John had asked him a question and losing himself in the puzzle.

John didn't seem to mind.

~O~.~O~

That night, Sherlock stuck another sticky note on the window. And sure enough, a few soft knocks echoed on the door minutes later. Sherlock grabbed the case file, opened the door, and wordlessly grabbed Elise's arm, dragging her up to the roof before she could say anything.

"Jeez, pushy." She muttered to herself, but didn't struggle. When they got up to the roof, he could see the moonlight highlighting her worried features.

"What's wrong, what's happened?" She asked.

"Leslie Cale committed suicide yesterday." He said shortly, handing her the manila folder.

"Oh, friend of yours? I'm sorry…"

"What? No, actually, I was hoping you would know her."

"Me?" Elise asked distractedly as she opened the case file. Then she froze, staring at the picture that Sherlock had made sure was on top.

"This…oh god. Oh, shit. How… how did he…" She floundered for a moment, then took a deep breath and sat down on the ground where she was, looking through the rest of the file.

"This is really not good, not fucking good…" She muttered to herself as she leafed through papers and reports.

"You think?!" Sherlock hissed. She glanced up.

"Hey, I don't know his fucking plans any more than you, okay? This is news to me, too." She said shortly, glaring at him. Then she sighed.

"Jesus fuck…"

"Are you usually this verbose?"

"I curse when I'm stressed."

"You curse a lot."

"I'm stressed a lot." She said in a tight voice, then picked up the picture again, staring at it. "how old do you think…"

"She was 37." Sherlock replied immediately, pacing the length of the roof.

"No, no I mean how long do you think she had the wings?" Sherlock paused, thinking.

"I… don't know."

"Can you get me access to the body? I can probably figure it out, then we can get a better idea of the motive." He nodded, pulling out his cellphone. If the woman had committed suicide immediately after she had grown the wings, then it could have been shock, plain and simple. But if she had had them for a few days, then it could be a lot more complicated.

**What did you do with the body? SH**

**Leslie Cale? GL**

**Yes, did you send her to my insufferable brother? SH**

**Yeah. Didn't know what else to do. GL**

Sherlock groaned and briefly pressed the glowing phone to his forehead.

"What?"

"He gave the body to Mycroft." Sherlock muttered angrily.

"Oh. Well… you know, if it's really that big a deal, I can just sneak in there and take a peek. Just tell me where she'd be." Sherlock paused.

"No, Mycroft would have her under the highest security."

"Not a problem."

"I think it would be, actually."

"hmmm…underestimating me could get you killed, you know." She said tonelessly, her lips twitching in what might have been interpreted in a smirk.

"I don't think you understand—"

"And I don't think you understand. I know my limits, and you do not. If I tell you I can do something, I can. And I will. So, either call your brother, or get me coordinates." Sherlock paused, and looked at Elise. Her posture was comepletely relaxed, her tone bland, head tilted ever so slightly. Yet there was _something_ in the depths of her eyes that made him think of lions at the zoo. Lazily rolling in the sun, looking for all the world like overly lethargic, useless lumps of fur. Then someone would throw a piece of meat in the cage, and they became deadly predators made of pure muscle and speed, neither incapable nor unwilling to rip and tear and kill. He was reminded, quite suddenly, of how little he knew about this girl. He sighed, though it was mostly for show.

"Fine, I'll ask him." He looked down at his phone and tapped out a brief text.

**I need to see the body of Leslie Cale. SH**

**St. Jakobsens hospital, on 3****rd**** st. I will meet you there. I'd like to discuss this…predicament, in person. MH**

Sherlock groaned again dramatically. This night was just getting better and better. First he had to ask Mycroft for a favor. Then he had to actually talk to him?! This was just great, wasn't it?

"So where we headed?" Elise asked, ignoring his obvious annoyance.

"St. Jakobsens, on 3rd street."

"Great, let's go." She stood up, handed him the case file, and then started walking to the edge of the roof.

"Where are you going?" he asked, and she turned around, confused, then groaned.

"Right, you don't fly." Sherlock scowled at her.

"You know, you're going to have to eventually."

"No, I won't."

"Yes, you will. It's the strongest instinct we have, it's literally impossible to just ignore it indefinitely. I've tried." Sherlock frowned at this.

"We were made for flight, Sherlock. If we stay on the ground too long, it will start to slowly kill you. Flying is as important to us as food or water or oxygen. You can't deny it."

"Watch me." He growled. She watched him go, a resigned scowl on her face. Then she huffed, rolled her eyes up to the skies in a silent prayer for strength, and followed him down off the roof. By the stairs.

Lord, if this man wasn't as stubborn as he was intelligent.

~O~.~O~

**A/N: right, another chapter for my fabulous readers. If any of you are still out there, I cannot say enough how amazing you are and how impressed and amazed I am. **

**IMPORTANT NOTE: Okay, generally I am REALLY against OC's in fics, and while Elise is a pretty cool character, I think, it is possible for me to edit this plot to not need her. HOWEVER, that would mean that I would need to **_**completely rewrite**_** pretty much the entire past two chapters. Which I obviously really don't wanna do *hangs neon sign that says "lazy" above my head and sits shamefully beneath it* however, if you all REALLY hate her, well, the will of the readers be done. So PLEASE let me know if she should stay or go—It would help a lot. Also, I have decided that I will not put any explicit or even obvious Johnlock in here—you'll have to use your special shipper goggles, sorry.**

**Thanks everyone!**


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